Spain Archives - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. Mack. The arguments come after a Texas federal district court held that a program devised by a Justice of the Peace under which his court sessions are opened with a prayer from a volunteer chaplain violates the Establishment Clause.
In Mahoney v. United States Capitol Police Board, a D.C. federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to a clergyman who was denied a permit to hold a large prayer vigil on part of the Capitol grounds.
In Weston v. Sears, an Ohio federal magistrate judge recommended that Plaintiff, a Seventh Day Adventist, be permitted to proceed in forma pauperis with her Title VII claim for religious discrimination. Plaintiff was fired for failing, until after the end of her Sabbath, to return multiple phone calls from her manager.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has signed a bill prohibiting discrimination against faith-based adoption and foster care organizations, including a requirement that they place children in same-sex households when doing so would violate their religious beliefs.
In Affaire Assemblée chrétienne des Témoins de Jéhovah d’Anderlecht et autres c. Belgique, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of a Jehovah’s Witness congregation in Belgium that was denied a property tax exemption for property they used for religious worship.
Spain’s Senate voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that amends the country’s penal code to criminalize “harassment” of women entering abortion clinics.

Richard F. Storrow (City U. of N.Y. School of Law) has posted Religion, Feminism and Abortion: The Regulation of Assisted Reproduction in Two Catholic Countries. The abstract follows.

Perspectives on abortion and religious values have been two primary influences on the development of the various regulatory regimes that govern assisted reproduction around the world. This article examines why two countries with similar histories of allegiance to Roman Catholicism have developed highly divergent legal regimes to regulate assisted reproduction. Italy has enacted one of the most restrictive regimes known, Spain one of the most permissive. The comparative analysis employed here will afford insight into how the development of legislative responses to assisted reproduction correlate with religious commitments, feminist sentiment and the regulation of abortion. This article concludes with a discussion of what implications its analysis might have for the regulation of the infertility industry in the United States.